When We Meet Again (2 page)

"I suppose I am." He gathered her to him and fell silent for a long moment. She felt his heart beat in his chest against the press of her breasts. His growing arousal nudged between her legs, and her own newfound desire pooled within her. "I could keep you here, you know. At this very minute, there are guards outside the door and others in the room beyond. I could spirit you away without notice, if I so wished, and keep you forever in my bed and by my side."

"Yet you will not do so." Even as she said the words she knew the truth of them. He was a man with unlimited power. A man used to getting exactly what he wanted, yet she hadn't the slightest doubt that, in spite of his threat, he would not do anything to tarnish the memories of this night. He would not do anything she did not wish. "And to what end. Your Highness? I have no desire to be any man's mistress, not even a prince's."

"I cannot offer more."

"I am well aware of the obligations of the heir to a throne."

"Still—"

"Alexei." She brushed her lips against his. "You would grow tired of me before the week is out."

"Never." his lips murmured against hers.

"There is no place for me in your life beyond this one night."

"What is it about this night?" His voice rang hard in the shadows, and he drew away. She sensed him studying her. "You have cast a spell upon me. Serenissima. In truth. I am enchanted. By a woman I have not seen save by the light of the stars. A woman who will share her body but not her name. A woman who initiated seduction yet has had little experience in such matters." She caught her breath.

"Do not be surprised. Serenissima." He chuckled. "You cannot choose a man of my reputation for this game you play and not expect him to notice you are not what you appear."

"It is not a game. Alexei." she said quietly. "It is my life."

"It could well be my life at risk. You could be an assassin sent to cut my heart out."

"As you can see. I am unarmed."

"Indeed. I made certain of it." A grin sounded in his voice. "Ah. Serenissima. I have no reason to trust you, yet I do." He shook his head. "It is this place, no doubt. In the air. The stars. The music of the water. The magic of the night."

"Alexei." She drew him back to her. "We have this moment and this moment alone. Tonight. Is it not enough?"

"I have never wished for more than this from a woman before." he muttered. "It is most disconcerting."

"Tomorrow you will be Prince Alexei Pruzinsky, the heir to the throne of Avalonia, and the night will have no more significance than a dream."

"And you? Who will you be tomorrow?"

"I will be..." She smiled. "I will never be the same again."

"Serenissima." He groaned and met her lips with his, and all rational thought vanished beneath an onslaught of passion and sensation of utter, indescribable delight.

And in the moment before she gave herself completely to the pleasure of his touch she wondered if indeed she could be a woman of the world and share the beds of other men or if whatever had passed between her and this one man on this magic night was far and away too wondrous and unique to know ever again.

He was indeed a glorious mistake.

And she'd never forget him.

One

When I see London again I shall be the picture of propriety. I shall behave in a respectablemanner always. And I shall try very hard to hold on to the woman I have become. Miss Pamela Effington

Four years later...

"Well done. Clarissa." Pamela Effington pulled off her mask and grinned at her opponent. "You nearly had me for a moment."

"Nearly is an understatement, dear cousin." Clarissa, Lady Overton, drew off her own mask and shook her dark hair free. "Another few seconds, and the point would have been mine." Pamela laughed. "Fortunately, there was no time left."

"Fortunate indeed." Clarissa slashed the blade of her fencing foil through the air. "Next time. I shall claim victory."

"As you did in our previous match." Pamela shook her head with good-natured humor. "We are well suited, cousin."

"Indeed we are." Clarissa studied the foil thoughtfully. "But is it really necessary, do you think, for a woman to be skilled with a sword? It's not as if we should ever be forced to fight a duel for our honor."

"I'm not certain a woman can ever have too many skills or too much knowledge. Besides, it stirs the blood, or at least mine, and is excellent for the body and the mind. And I, for one, find it both stimulating and quite enjoyable."

Clarissa raised a brow. "You sound precisely like Aunt Millicent."

"I'm not the least bit surprised as I quite agree with her about a great many things." Pamela handed her mask and foil to Monsieur Lucien, the fencing master, with a nod of thanks.

"Of course you would." Clarissa handed her own things to Monsieur Lucien. "Fencing, doing anything women do not typically do, makes you more of an—"

"Don't say it." Pamela's voice was firm. "I am not in the mood for yet another discussion of my character flaws." She started toward the grand entry in the ornate ballroom they had used for their fencing lesson. The ballroom occupied a good portion of the first floor of an impressive house in the very best part of Vienna that belonged to an Austrian count, an old and dear friend of Lady Smythe-Windom, their Aunt Millicent. Of course, there didn't seem to be anywhere in the world where there wasn't a very old and very dear friend of Aunt Millicent's. In all the years of their travel together, not one such friend of their aunt's had ever failed to invite them to stay for as long as they wished. It was a grand way to live even if, on occasion, the unsettled nature of their lives had bothered both Pamela and Clarissa. Still, it was what each woman had chosen for her own reasons.

"Nonetheless. I am going to say it." Clarissa trailed after her cousin. "You like fencing and anything else that's unconventional and a shade scandalous because it's precisely what an Effington female would enjoy."

"I am an Effington female." Pamela stifled a long-suffering sigh. Clarissa had brought this subject up over and over again in recent months and over and over again. Pamela had managed to deflect the discussion. She headed down the corridor that led to a series of salons designed for music and games and whatever else the residents of a house like this desired.

"The flaw isn't in being what you are but rather in trying to be something you aren't." Clarissa called after her.

"Indeed." Pamela muttered.

It was easy for Clarissa to make pronouncements. She simply didn't understand and probably never would. Clarissa was Pamela's cousin on her mother's side and hadn't the least idea what it was like to be an Effington. Especially a quiet, reserved, shy Effington.

Oh, certainly. Pamela's cousin Delia had been considered "quiet" until scandal broke around her head. And then Delia's twin sister Cassandra, who everyone thought was headed for the worst kind of scandal, well, wasn't.

And of course, there was Pamela herself, whose behavior no one had ever worried about, who, at the advanced age of twenty, when she certainly should have known better, had fallen deeply and passionately in love with George Fenton, the son of Viscount Penwick. At least she had thought she had, and had, with rapt abandon and no consideration to the consequences, lost her virtue to him. It was, as her brothers had muttered in a dark and forbidding manner once her ruination was known, the quiet ones you had to keep your eye on.

It wasn't simply her nature that had set Pamela apart from the vast numbers of Effington relations. She had never particularly looked like a member of the family, who were all in all an attractive lot, the women universally pretty, some of them quite beautiful, the men typically handsome and dashing. Pamela's mother, a beauty in her own right, had always staunchly declared her oldest daughter was simply late to bloom and would come into her own one day. And indeed, shortly after her twentieth birthday. Pamela had gazed into a mirror and discovered that her tall, lanky body and nondescript features had somehow become rather nice. Even lovely. Unfortunately, the confidence in oneself that was as much an Effington birthright as the name itself had not accompanied the unexpected transformation. Therefore, was it any wonder that Pamela lost her heart, and her innocence, to the first man who showed her a fair amount of attention? Oh, certainly, she had thought George had been sincere in his declarations of affection and had shared her feelings and was intent upon marriage. She had never dreamed said intentions were not in regards to marriage to her.

Clarissa, on the other hand, had been born pretty and even as a child had always had a quiet confidence about her. She'd never had a doubt as to where she belonged or with whom. While the cousins shared a certain similarity in appearance, although Pamela's coloring was far fairer than Clarissa's, and were a scant few months apart in age, the way in which they saw the world was as different as night and day. Odd then that they had been not merely cousins but the very best of friends for nearly all of their lives. Pamela had on occasion wondered if they were so close because Clarissa was not an Effington and Pamela had never especially felt like an Effington.

Until, of course. Aunt Millicent had taken her under her wing.

"Dearest girls." Aunt Millicent's voice sounded from an open doorway. "Do come join me at once. I have the most interesting news."

Pamela turned to enter the room, but Clarissa caught her arm and met her gaze. "Stop it, cousin, and listen to me. What I have been trying to say for months now, and obviously not at all well, is that you have nothing left to prove. You are not the same girl who fled six years ago from London rather than face scandal. You are confident and assured and not the least bit reticent about voicing your feelings or opinions. Indeed, you've become quite accomplished and really rather remarkable I think. I would even say you are"—Clarissa rolled her gaze toward the ceiling—"every inch an Effington. God help you." Pamela stared at the other woman for a moment then grinned. "I know." Clarissa's brows drew together. "You do? But you didn't say a word."

"It isn't something one announces. Besides, it didn't happen overnight. I daresay, I've been changing, growing if you will, since the very first day we left London. Perhaps it makes no sense, it doesn't entirely make sense to me, but I haven't at all been trying to become something I'm not, simply trying to find out who I am." Pamela thought for a moment. "I have found that I like fencing and riding at a full gallop and exotic places and dancing until dawn and flirting with delightful men. And I particularly like speaking my mind without fear as to the consequences. In truth I find I quite like Pamela Effington." She cast her cousin a wry smile. "And I can see that was not true six years ago."

"You were entirely too hard on yourself." Clarissa studied her cousin. "I have always liked you."

"You have always loved me." Pamela gave her a quick hug. "As I have always loved you."

"Are the two of you going to stand in the doorway going on forever about Lord knows what, or are you going to come in here." Aunt Millicent's impatient voice rang from the room. "I have the most wonderful news, and I shall burst if I do not share it at once."

The cousins exchanged grins and stepped into the salon.

Aunt Millicent did indeed look as if she would burst at any moment, her usual air of barely suppressed energy heightened, if possible, by excitement. She was the twin sister of Pamela's mother and had used her widowhood and the vast wealth she had inherited to live precisely as she pleased. Indulging in a great deal of travel, an equally great number of gentlemen admirers, and an extraordinary amount of fun. Aunt Millicent always said she had married once for love and refused to many again for any other reason. Marriage, she claimed, was simply not worth the effort otherwise.

"News, darlings." Aunt Millicent waved a piece of paper at them. "I have the very best of news. Do you remember my aunt Elizabeth?"

"Great-aunt Elizabeth?" Clarissa nodded. "Of course."

"Of course," Pamela murmured. "Who could possibly forget Great-aunt Elizabeth?"

"Indeed the woman was stodgy and stingy and condemning of virtually everyone who did not live their lives precisely as she thought proper." Aunt Millicent wrinkled her nose. "She long disapproved of me. Well." Aunt Millicent beamed. "She's dead."

A heretofore-unnoticed gentlemen cleared his throat.

Aunt Millicent glanced at him and winced. "I didn't mean to imply that I'm especially glad that she's dead. I would not have wished her dead. However. I certainly did not kill her, and as she is dead, we should bravely carry on and make the best of it." She glanced at her nieces. "This is Mr. Corby, a very nice solicitor whose firm handled Elizabeth's affairs and who has furthermore been so gracious as to come all the way from London to bring us this news as well as this letter explaining everything. It appears Elizabeth was involved in a rather unusual incident involving a carriage and a herd of"—she glanced at the gentleman—"goats was it?"

"Pigs." he said under his breath.

"Pigs, yes, of course." Aunt Millicent sighed and cast her gaze downward. "Quite tragic."

"Shouldn't we say a prayer or a few words?" Pamela said in an aside to Clarissa. Clarissa nodded. "Something I should think."

"Absolutely. Why, I should have thought of it myself." Aunt Millicent folded her hands together beneath her chin, paper still clasped between them, and gazed upward. "Dear Lord." She paused and cast pointed glances at the rest of the gathering. Pamela and Clarissa obediently folded their hands and looked toward the heavens. Mr. Corby hesitated, then followed suit.